Fires in Eastern Russia

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Several large, smoky fires burned in the forests of southeastern Russia when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this image. The fires are marked in red.

The image includes parts of two Russian provinces, the Irkutsk Region in the east and the Krasnoyarsk Territory in the west. On June 1, 59 fires burned in the Irkutsk Region, affecting 1,214.3 hectares, said EMERCOM of Russia. 33 fires burned in Krasnoyarsk Territory, affecting 1,834.8 hectares. Most of the fires burned in forest, producing the thick smoke shown in the image.

The two regions were among the areas that posed the greatest challenge to firefighters in early June because of the difficult, remote terrain and warm, fire-friendly weather. So far in 2011, 425,186.16 hectares of land have burned, compared to 187,391.39 hectares for the same period in 2010.

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This image originally appeared on the Earth Observatory. Click here to view the full, original record.